Sportscasters Should Stick To The Game!

Sportscasters – we either love them or hate them. A good sportscaster can make watching a sporting event a pleasurable experience, but a bad sportscaster can make it an annoying one.

When a sportscaster decides to comment on political, or social issues during a live-game broadcast, they turn the event into their very own, personal and public-platform for airing an opinion. Of course, everyone is entitled to their thoughts, but is a baseball game or a football game the proper place or time to be doing that?

Surely, sports politics may be justifiable, but when the conversation turns to topics like gun control, sexual-orientation, and paternity-leave, one has to wonder what the relevance is to the game itself.

Sportscasters are knowledgeable professionals, in the area of their own expertise, and they are to be recognized for their valuable contributions. But when a viewer tunes in to a playoff game and starts hearing a sportscaster’s opinion on why assault rifles should be banned, or why athletes should not take time off to see their children born, they are inevitably left scratching their heads.

Does it really matter? Is it going to change the outcome of the game? Are we to believe that the networks are promoting such self-centered, on-air behavior? Is this what sportscasters are getting paid for?

Sportscasters should stick to discussing the game. We like them better that way. If we want to hear political opinions we can always switch to CNN or go online where an infinite number of debates are readily available in the proper forums.

There is a time and a place for everything, right?

Joseph E. Rathjen is a book author and an Opinion Writer at 1World Online – America’s Fastest Growing Social Research Engine.